History: My first HERO character

[Doc Democracy]

Just looking at PamelaIsley's thread and it made me think about my first HERO character and that of my friends. It was way back in 1980 - box set Champions, poorly typeset and black and white throughout.

 

My first character was a growth based brick called Titan, as GM he was the villain in our first game. Pure simple growth and not a huge amount more. The heroes? Black Ninja, Night Stalker and Jack of Hearts. It was a simple bank robbery scenario but it sold us on HERO. Titan kicked Black Ninja through three walls but despite the horror of the player at the result of being kicked the hero was able to stand up and rejoin the battle. Pure superherodom. Jack of Hearts was built with susceptability to his own powers and no real thought put to END use. He flew into the air, fired an energy bolt and knocked himself out!

 

Night Stalker was a simple martial arts build and used his skills to disable the bad guy.

 

None of the characters were well balanced. None of them were maximised but everyone had a great time.

 

Do you remember your first HERO build? What was it about it that made you want to come back to it??

 

Doc

[culhwch]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

Oh, yeah! And I still have the character sheet! Just like you, we started with the Champions box set. The character's name was Gospel Singer and had sonic powers built with an Elemental Control. He was kind of a weakling, as I was new to the concept of Character Disadvantages, so I didn't take enough to get the max points allowed (because...why gimp your hero????? ). I don't remember any of the other's characters other than one had a Hunted: Viper....and those dudes kept messing us up!

[Theron]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

My first character was created pretty much while walking through the rules (1st edition). At that point, I wasn't just a noob to superhero gaming, I was a noob to superhero comics, having somehow missed the bus between the ages of 12 and 18. I only got into comics when I discovered V&V and Champions and realized I knew nothing about the genre.

 

As a result, my first character was a flying guy called Projectile. He had ultra-tough skin and rockets on his belt that allowed him to slam into things. I never actually played him.

 

The first character I actually played was this guy:

 

 

Spectrum, Your Radioactive Pal

 

(I freely admit I swiped the costume stylings from the LSH's Wildfire)

 

Spectrum was a scientist who'd been caught in a radiation accident. He had a pretty generic set of light based powers (EB, Force Field, Flight, Flash). The one thing that set him apart (which was, in retrospect, poor character design) was a small NND RKA that his suit blocked, intended to simulate the deadly radiation his body emitted at all times. Later on (sometime around the advent of the BBB, I just changed this to a Phys Lim). I played Spectrum in various incarnations and campaigns for nearly a decade. He wasn't my only PC, but he was my ace in the hole if I couldn't come up with something else, and his history and background were generic enough that I could tailor him to other people's games pretty easily.

[Theron]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

He was kind of a weakling' date=' as I was new to the concept of Character Disadvantages, so I didn't take enough to get the max points allowed (because...why gimp your hero????? ).[/quote']

 

When I discovered Champions, I decided more or less immediately that I wanted to run it. Unfortunately, I had an existing V&V game going on at the time and my best friend vehemently refused to switch. It took weeks of me pestering him to at least put a character together. When he did, his first one was a "conversion" of his V&V character, built on precisely 100 points, because "My character has no Weaknesses."

 

(For the record, his resistance failed the first time we actually played, and he went on to move to Phoenix and play in some of the nigh-legendary games held at Flying Buffalo.)

[hfergus]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

My first Character was Volt; an older (sixties) electrical blaster made in Hero system 3. Has been used in every game I've ever played in- as PC or GMPC (kinda). Has been done in every version since except 6th. Will redo him in version 6 soon, but since he uses Elemental control and since that as such is gone, he might go up in cost. Will see.

 

He always seems to be liked by all the other players in every game I've put him in.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

Will redo him in version 6 soon' date=' but since he uses Elemental control and since that as such is gone, he might go up in cost. Will see.[/quote']

 

I wrote up a group (Vermin) in 5th, and then converted them to 6th to learn some of the changes. Two of them had Elemental Controls. The mentalist's EC (4 powers) was 140 points, and went up to 174 as Unified Powers. The rodent controller's EC (also 4 powers) was 104 points, and only went up to 106 as Unified Powers. And one of the rodent controller's powers went up in conversion (from a 300-point Summon to a 350-point Summon). So you might be pleasantly surprised.

 

But back on topic. My first character was Gregory Ichabod Jones (GI Jones), an M-16 toting Vietnam vet . None of us, including the GM, knew the rules, so during our first session we interpreted the "2d6K / 6d6" in the weapon chart to mean a 2d6 RKA with 6d6 worth of Knockback. (!!!) I shot the VIPER villain Brick, and he went *through* two buildings and ended up inside a third.

 

GI Jones only lasted two sessions, then I drew up Bolo (electrical powers, with a teleport / gliding combo that I still think rocks for movement). Played him for years, until our GM moved away.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

My first Champions character is Shadow, a ninja of course! (I grew up with the Ninja Craze; Sho Kuguzi rocks!) I started with the BBB. Now he is only a normal human in a supers world. But what made him sooo memorable, is that I was never really explained what Silver age meant. So I ran Shadow as a classic ninja (Dark Champions), I threw Black Claw off a tall building. Yes I had no code vs. Killing, but I had vengence as a disadvantage. Also my classic strategy is move half phase, hold have phase--then dodge.

[lemming]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

Started playing Champions in '81 in college.

 

First character I wrote up was "The Mad Bomber", but figured he'd make a better villain.

 

My first real character was Nighthawk. I played around with several different versions and settled on a flying Martial Artist with detective skills who ran the "Fly by Night Detective Agency"

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

I wanted a "Homo Excellus" (cheesy Jack Williamson novel from the 50s, never mind) style mutant: just better at everything. My GM allowed unlimited disadvantages, and I ramped the character up to over 500 points with vast lumps dropped into characteristics and skills. With what was left over, I bought a pistol, about my only means of actually accomplishing anything.

It was enormous fun. Having learned my lesson, my next character was a flying telekinetic, but I never got a chance to play him.

[Matt Holck]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

My first character was a whip wielding Indiana Jones types converted from a skill system fantasy campaign

I gained clinging and swinging which was really fun

(I only played that character in Champions once)

He did fine as the whip damage was excessive.

[timfnj]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

My 1st champs character (back in the '80s) was Aimer aka the Mk26 security android [security guard has lab mishap and ends up in the bot].Wrist mounted oif cannon.Only played him once as he was too slow to keep up with rest of pc's(had fun tho). Next was PanzerFlight an alien powersuit inspired as a man sized cross between MSG and Iron Man w/instant change(recognized on the street for doing Tom Carvell style commercials for his security company). I've played PF on and off ever since(will have to see what he looks like in 6ed).

[Rapier]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

It was 1991. I had just started uni and the group on campus was largely Champions and ShadowRun folks.

 

Jennan Corvi was a bio-physicist/geneticist who had an experiment go awry. He grew wings and a tail and become invisible. This also activated his latent mental abilities as a combat mentalist (nothing but EGO Attack and Mental DEF). I didn't have a very good grasp of the system as yet, and was actually able to shoehorn a heavily limited 12d6 EGO Attack (what? everyone else had 12d6. I figured I did too) as his main point drop. Since he was invisible, he had NO DEF. IIRC, there was about 5 or 6 points of PD/ED.

 

It was fun, but I played him all through college. I haven't since picked up another mentalist.

[Panpiper]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

I discovered Champions within the first couple of months of the first edition coming out. I utterly devoured the rules, as many of my gaming compatriots also got into the system. The first game was filled with unabashed powergamers. I was no exception. We 'wargamed' Champions.

 

Back then a standard superhero was built on 225 points, and that was quite restraining. My first character was played for several years as the game stopped and restarted. She was the great, great, great, great... grand daughter of the goddess Ishtar, appropriately named; Ishtar. Her claim to roleplaying chrome was that she 'wasted' 5 points on buying her Comeliness up to 20. All the rest of the points were spent without any limitations to reduce the cost, unlike most of my fellow players who heaped on loads of them to squeeze more power. Our GMs however (we rotated the job amongst us) took great glee in exploiting all those limitations (appropriately) and my character was frequently the only one not hampered by the villain's plans, due to having no such limitations.

 

I did however exploit the rules to the level of rape. The sixth edition has finally corrected the huge oversight in the original cost of dexterity. Oddly, none of the other power gamers saw the utility of it if pushed. So my character walked around for the longest time with a Dex of 38 and for years remained extremely hard to hit, and she virtually never missed. I explored a number of different options during her initial build, starting with a discus thrower, moving on to a martial artist, and then it dawned on me that the ideal meld for her martial arts level dexterity was to not spend points on martial arts to double the potential for her strength damage (the way it was done back then) but rather to simply sink those points straight into strength, which would net me lots of figureds, especially stun. So I built a super high Dex, light brick. She was hard to hit, and if she 'did' get hit, well, she was a brick, she could take being hit. I remember her starting stats exactly:

 

55 Str 45

36 Dex 78

23 Con 26

10 Body

10 Int

8 Ego -4

14 Pre 4

20 Com 5

21 Pd 10

21 Ed 16

6 Spd 24

16 Rec

46 End

50 Stun

 

15 Half Damage Resistance

6 +3" Running

 

Total: 225

 

The first experience points boosted her Dex to 38, her Strength to 60, her Con to 28, her PD/ED to 25, and her Presence to 20. I don't remember what happened with her Ego, but we rarely encountered mentalists. I do remember diversifying her defenses with Power Defense and the like, so I must have boosted Ego.

 

Neither she nor any of the other characters ever spent much on non combat. Oddly, there was none the less a fair amount of roleplaying. It just never figured into our character sheets back then. Ishtar had a public ID and often appeared on 'low ratings' talk shows. She thought it was because she was cool and popular. She never clued in to how she was more of a circus freak in the way she was treated. At least, that's how I played it.

 

She 'did' get on the Johnny Carson show once.

[Susano]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

My first attempt at a character was (I think) Dark Star, who manipulated dark energy (or something like that). He was (IIRC) pretty much a failure mechanically due to a distinct lack of rules comprehension. My character was Avalon, the sorcerer-supreme, who saw play for around 7 years or so. An updated, 6E version is here:

 

http://surbrook.devermore.net/original/champions/avalon.html

[Zed-F]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

I can't even remember the name of my first character, back in 2nd Edition, but I do remember she had a lightning-based elemental control including a 16d6 stun-only EB. Flying blaster, obviously. EDIT -- Now I remember her name: Tempest.

 

More memorable was my brother's first character, Bullet, who stumbled onto the munchkin power of shrinking bricks entirely by accident. At least I assume it was by accident, since neither of us were that familiar with the rules. He had a gobsmack of HID-Only-Always-On-In-HID Shrinking and Density Increase, combined with a good bit of superleap and a tendency to punch holes in things with move-by and move-through.

 

One of the more amusing things was that the character also had a Secret ID and the Paramedics skill, but the GM (rightly) wouldn't let him use the skill with his tiny hands while shrunk. There was a time or two when an injured person needed saving in combat situations, and he was the only one around who could do it (my character, who also had paramedics, being elsewhere at the time.) Fun times, fun times...

[Cygnia]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

My 1st HERO character had Multiform with flight, claws and a sonic scream EB named Osprey. I remember her first combat...the GM sicc'ed an enemy who had air elemental powers on me. Actually ended up taking him out and the group congratulated me on NOT flying around the air elementalist.

 

I had actually forgotten that my character COULD fly.

[Tigereye]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

My first was in 1983; early edition Champions character called Scirocco, a former Australian Army officer who developed the power to create superheated winds around him. He'd probably have an Elemental set in 5th ed, but at the time had energy blast, a high ED and PD Force Field (although not resistant). Main weakness was x2 END and did not yet have the power of flight. We had a real numbskull for a GM who kept sending villains with Killing Attacks against us, and IIRC only two of the party had Resistant defenses. We learned to use every object in our area for defense...

[Checkmate]

Re: History: My first HERO character

 

My first character was in, I believe, what was 3rd ed (the one that had the flying guy, the swinging guy and the fire girl on the cover). The name was Frostbite, he had a vari-slot multipower with Force Field, Energy Blast, Entangle, Flight and Force Wall.

 

My brother's character was an Egoist (that's what we called them back then ) and my other friend was a basic Brick. Just to try out the system we fought Mechanon. We actually won since the GM didn't understand how to run most of the powers, including Killing Attacks, and didn't feel like looking up flash.

 

What really sold me on Hero was END. I loved the fact that I had to run and hide in a dumpster (Mechanon's N-Ray didn't work through tin ) to recover some END. I thought it was cool you could tire yourself out.